Sifu - Books - Famous Chinese Shopping City

March 8, 2014


		1 Introduction 2 Traditional meaning of Sifu 3 Usage of "Sifu" in the present 4 Slang 5 See also

Famous Chinese Shopping City Books

Sifu

Wikipedia

Sifu or Sh??fu (師傅 or 師父) means "Master" or "Teacher" in the Chinese language. The term is most commonly used in martial arts schools. The word Si means teacher, while the word Fu means father. Depending on the dialect or transliteration, sifu may be spelled differently.

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Traditional meaning of Sifu

Traditionally, in Chinese martial arts, learning from a master does not make one his student automatically. The acceptance as a student is a very formal event, usually requires a ceremony called baisi (拜師). One can always address a master as sifu as a courtesy in greetings, to acknowledge an elder. But one cannot say a certain master he or she learns from is his or her sifu without such a formal admission ceremony - only after a student is admitted formally, will the sifu pass all his knowledge. Only then, can the student be the carrier of the tradition to the next generation.

In most martial arts schools, the master may and actually quite often teach, many informal students. However, only a "worthy few" are admitted formally to carry the sifu's name forward.
If a student misbehaves, the sifu can denounce the student and eliminate the student's name from the school.

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Usage of "Sifu" in the present

Presently, martial art schools are run as businesses. In such schools, informal students are numerous, and naturally, many will claim some famous masters are their sifu even though they have never been admitted formally nor received a significant portion of the master's knowledge. In the past, using the sifu's name without permission was forbidden and to do so was considered a disgrace: and even today, the issue of formal lineage becomes a very controversial topic.

For example, Yip Man probably had hundreds of informal students because of the open Wing Chun school he ran in Hong Kong. Some sources claimed that he only had eight formal students who were authorized to carry his name.  As such, Moy Yat was among these students. Thus in a traditional view, he lives on as a thriving lineage of gongfu in the United States. Some also say that Bruce Lee was one of the formal students of Yip Man, although he did not go through the entire Wing Chun system.

In a martial arts school, the actual teaching of even a formal student is usually done by the more senior sihings. Only after the student has reached a certain level of skill, will the sifu start to get involved in more formal training.

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Slang

In mainland China, sifu is a respectful form to address drivers, monks or nuns, as well as cooks and feng shui tellers in Hong Kong. In recent years, the word has been applied to workers of many disciplines; people use the word so as to, superficially, build up a better guanxi with others, in particular those with whom they are not familiar.

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